Not much of a Joyce: a short history of Barnaby blowing up his own party

Say what you want about the National Party under the leadership of David Littleproud — it’s been a while since anyone has been moved to describe it as “unfit for office, any office, any time“. Over the weekend, it became apparent that some Nats found this unacceptable.

“The National Party looks set for another leadership change, with opponents of David Littleproud increasingly confident he is on borrowed time,” promised The Daily Telegraph. His crimes seem to be that he’s too subservient to Liberal Leader Peter Dutton and that he’s “gaining a reputation among some for ‘flying off the handle’.”

So who better to ameliorate this situation than the steady, calm temper and unifying rhetoric of Barnaby Joyce?

Yep, inevitably, Joyce (along with climate sceptic backbencher and guy you’re about to google, Keith Pitt) is being put forward as the solution to the Nats’ apparent woes. Several sources — including in the original piece — have come forward to say the whole thing is nonsense and Dutton is reportedly very keen that Littleproud stay in place. Perhaps they remember all the other times Joyce veered in and out of the Nationals’ leadership and the embarrassment and damage it caused the Coalition.

2017

Joyce had been in federal Parliament for more than a decade — sliding from the Senate in Queensland to a lower house seat in NSW — by the time he assumed the party leadership in 2016. In that time, he was best known for mistaking billions for trillions, threatening to cross the floor to extract pork for his region, musing about the likelihood of Australia defaulting, and receiving international acclaims for threatening to murder some dogs. So who could have known he was going to cause some embarrassment to the government in his role as deputy PM almost immediately?

As the the citizenship farrago of 2017 stretched on, Joyce was caught up — not before having bizarrely claimed to have never been to England — and forced into a byelection, which he won easily. But much worse was to come.

2018

During the marriage-equality debate (Joyce opposed the extension of marriage to same-sex couples), Joyce revealed he and his wife had separated. In February, the Tele ran a front page confirming rumours that had swirled for months — that Joyce was expecting a baby with Vikki Campion, a member of his staff with whom he’d had an affair. The resultant outcry lead to calls for Joyce’s resignation from friend and foe. There was an open war of words when then-PM Malcolm Turnbull called on Joyce to “consider his position”, before announcing a widely mocked “bonk ban” in Parliament.

This wasn’t enough, though. It took (never resolved and always denied by Joyce) allegations of sexual harassment against him to trigger a leadership spill — and Michael McCormack got the top job.

It only took a matter of months for rumours that Joyce was soon to return to the top job to bubble up again — as if the new Scott Morrison government, fresh from a coup of its own and soon to lose Turnbull’s seat of Wentworth to independent Kerryn Phelps, needed any more internal dysfunction.

2020

In February 2020, on a day that was supposed to have been dedicated to Parliament paying its respects to the victims of the recent bushfire catastrophe, a decent chunk of of the Nationals decided it was better to make the day about them. The icing on the cake was that that the way they chose to do it by attempting to reinstate as leader a guy who had spent the last year ranting on Facebook about “barking mad” climate change action. At the end of a farcical day, McCormack remained leader — we’ll never know the margin, as the numbers were not released.

2021

By June 2021, Joyce was ready for yet another crack, and this time he was successful. To give a flavour of his approach, the well-regarded then-veterans affairs minister Darren Chester was swiftly and spitefully dumped for none other than Bridget McKenzie.

Joyce stayed in the role until the Coalition’s catastrophic election defeat in May 2022. At the time, Bernard Keane reflected on his influence in Crikey:

Joyce provided a convenient, one-size-fits-all, all-you-can-eat symbol of what was wrong with climate policy, integrity and the basic standards of decency in public life. Not for nothing did the teal independents make liberal — pun intended — use of the phrase ‘A vote for X is a vote for Barnaby’.

Surveying the smoking ruins of the Morrison government, Joyce — true to form — doesn’t care, saying it’s not his problem, comparing his influence to Tim Wilson losing Nationals votes in their seats, and flagging, inevitably, that net zero is again up for discussion.

Will we see another stint as leader added to this glorious CV?

Could you bear it? Barnaby Joyce back running the Nats? Let us know by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.